Looking into the abyss? Brazil at the mid-2010s

The Brazilian economy in 2015 was afflicted by a lethal combination of decelerating activity and accelerating inflation. Expectations for 2016 are equally or even more adverse, since the effects of rising unemployment emerge only after a lag. The domestic debate has pitted analysts who believe the crisis is due exclusively to past policy mistakes against those who believe that all was well until the government decided to implement austerity policies in 2015. A closer examination of the evidence shows that, in fact, both causes contributed to the crisis. But it also suggests that its depth has a more proximate cause in the political collapse of the federal government in 2015, which led Brazilian society to an impasse for which one cannot yet visualize the solution

Excess Capital and Liquidity Management

These notes present a new approach to corporate finance, one in which financing is not determined by prospective income streams but by financing opportunities, liquidity considerations, and prospective capital gains. This approach substantially modifies the traditional view of high interest rates as a discouragement to speculation; the Keynesian and Post-Keynesian theory of liquidity preference as the opportunity cost of investment; and the notion of the liquidity premium as a factor in determining the rate of interest on longer-term maturities

Exchange rate regulation, the behavior of exchange rates, and macroeconomic stability in Brazil

In the last two decades an entirely new set of rules governing the foreign exchange transactions was established in Brazil, substituting for the framework inherited from the 1930s. Foreign exchange controls were dismantled and a floating exchange rate regime replaced different forms of peg. In this paper we argue that although successful by comparison to previous experiences, the current arrangement has important flaws that should be addressed. We discuss how it first led to high volatility and extremely high interest rates, which, when overcome, gave way to a long lasting appreciation of the real exchange rate with adverse consequences to industry

O componente "custo de oportunidade" do spread bancário no Brasil: uma abordagem pós-keynesiana The "opportunity cost" component of bank interest spread in Brazil a post-Keynesian perspective

A redução pronunciada do spread bancário no Brasil requer a diminuição do custo de oportunidade das operações de crédito no país, representado pelos retornos monetários e não monetários dos títulos públicos federais. Ao permitir a estruturação de uma postura operacional flexível e rentável ao mesmo tempo, esses ativos criam uma disfuncionalidade no mercado de crédito, vez que os bancos passam a exigir um prêmio de risco muito elevado para a concessão de recursos, elevando o spread bancário e aumentando o custo do dinheiro no país.<br>The pronounced reduction of the bank interest spread in Brazil requests the decrease of the cost of opportunity of the credit operations in the country, represented by the monetary and no-monetary returns of the federal public titles. When allowing the structuring of a flexible and profitable operational posture at the same time, those assets create an anomaly in the credit market, because the banks start to demand a premium of very high risk for the concession of credit, elevating the bank interest spread and increasing the cost of the money in the country

O circuito finance-investimento-poupança- funding em economias abertas

<abstract language="eng">The finance-investment-savings-funding circuit in open economies. On monetary economies the Finance-Investment-Savings-Funding circuit (F-I-S-F) prevails. Investment precedes savings. This circuit was worked out for a closed economy. This study seeks to demonstrate that the circuit F-I-S-F also prevails for open economies. A second point studied in this paper relates the relationship between budget deficits and savings restriction for investment. Conclusions highlight that the circuit F-I-S-F prevails for open economies and that budget deficits do not cause savings restriction for investment. In some situations budget déficits transfer the effects of investment for national savings formation from domestic economy to the rest of the world